In Ontario, most purchases close without an up-to-date survey, because most buyers purchase a title insurance policy at the same time that they buy the house. What happens if you find out after the fact that your neighbour's property encroaches onto yours? Generally...
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real estate law
Property assessments
Last week, I received my 2012 property assessment notice from MPAC. The Municipal Property Assessment Corporation assesses property values every four years for the purpose of determining municipal taxes. They do this through an analysis of sales, and focus on five...
Renting to own
You may have heard of this scenario: a seller wants to sell their house, and is willing to take rental payment for a set period of time with the tenant to have a first right to buy at the end of the period, usually one-two years. Good for everyone, right? Well, maybe...
Registration
There are a lot of things that real estate lawyers do: searching title, checking for liens, looking at surveys, and, of course, actually registering the transfer. A common question: what exactly is registration? In Ontario, we have electronic registration through...
Going digital
Digital cameras led to the demise of printed photos; digital music to the disruption of the CD industry. In Ontario, all real estate transactions are done through the electronic registration database, otherwise known as Teraview. Everything is done electronically:...
A bit of Americana
I thought I would do a brief post today on the differences between a couple of American and Canadian terms. Let’s start with the big one: attorney. In the U.S., an attorney is a lawyer. In Canada, an attorney is an agent. Here, we call ourselves simply lawyers. You...
Start digging
A few months ago, I blogged about how far up and down you own on your property. Today, I thought I would focus in on one of those: mining rights. In Ontario, whether you own the subsurface rights to your property depends on a lot of things. First, when the Crown first...
Renting underground
I have a lot of clients who want to buy properties that have the possibility of renting out the basement for some extra income. There are several concerns that you should be aware of if you intend to do this. Is the apartment legal? In Barrie, very few basement...
Choose wisely
Today, I thought I would blog about something that's been taking over my life a bit lately: the busy summer season and choosing your closing date. It is traditional for real estate to be busy in the summer; people frequently go house hunting in the spring once the...
Chattels and fixtures and lawyers, oh my!
We got an interesting call at the office a few weeks ago: my partner's client was told by the seller of his home that the furnace was going with them. When my partner called the seller's lawyer to ask for an explanation, he explained that the furnace was a chattel,...